Art & Writing

Posts Tagged martens

Blake landed on the library roof, folding his wings and crouching down so I could slide off him more easily.

The big red gryphon rolled over on his back, and after various stretches of various limbs he had changed himself back into a big red kangaroo.

I sat next to him, resting a paw on his belly, and looked down into his eyes.

He looked back, and then through me, up at the stars behind the dome. I rolled over on my back next to him, looking up likewise.

“I’m sure we don’t belong up here,” I said.

“Just because you’re not supposed to do something doesn’t mean you don’t do it,” Blake said. “It means you think about whether doing it is worth the consequences.”

I laughed. “You’re trying to corrupt me.”

“Not at all,” Blake said. “Just reminding you that you have the power of choice. Even if the consequences are dire, you can choose to risk them—a ‘Keep Out’ sign is not an impenetrable force field. So what are the consequences of being caught up here that are so dire anyway? What’s the scenario you imagine?”

“Well, for trespassing we might go to court…” I said. “Might be a fine, or even jailtime. A blemish on my public record.”

“That’s a worst case,” Blake said. “Isn’t it more likely that, say, someone might find us and say, ‘Hey kids, you don’t belong out here, come back inside,’ and we do? Or that we don’t get found at all?”

“You are trying to corrupt me,” I said.

“Only a little.” He turned to face me, resting one heavy arm on my chest.

And he moved his arm lower, his paw passing my stomach. “Maybe about… this much?”

He squeezed playfully.

“In a public place?” I said.

“Ah, but it isn’t public,” Blake said. “There’s a Keep Out sign. This place is private for the many who allow a piece of cardboard to be stronger than their willpower, when it should take a good deal more.”

I grabbed Blake’s shoulder and hauled myself up on his back, gripping his long neck as he pushed it back against me.

His body was so soft, and so big—and still growing by the moment—I could feel him spreading out, slowly, between my legs.

He took off running, and I held on as tightly as I could as he ran downhill, spreading out his wings, which nearly filled the whole street.

“You’ve done this before?” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I felt his muscles readying under me and I gripped him tighter as he leaped into the air. The movement was impressive, but failed to catch air; he landed, carefully, and immediately took off again, with a grunt and a greater effort than before. This time, we soared.

When we left the restaurant it was still raining. I didn’t have anything damageable on me, so I didn’t bother manifesting an umbrella.

Blake was looking up into the downpour, looking even bigger than before—actually rounding out and looking chubbier by the moment.

“Um, Blake?”

“Hey marten,” he said. “Want to do something impossible?” He turned to me and grinned, though his face was already changing. His muzzle lengthened, straightening out into a solid red beak, and he sat back on his haunches, hands on the ground and looking up at me as he continued to grow.

When he was at eye level with me even in his crouched position, he stretched out, his arms growing into slender talons while his hindquarters took on a more feline appearance.

“Stand back,” he said, in a strange rumbling voice and I jumped back as two frankly enormous red wings sprouted from his back fully-formed, and a flick of the tail seemed to complete the transformation, leaving it a leonine shape with a dark red tuft.

Blake shook his head, mouth full, and swallowed. “Well,” he said, “it helps to think over advice when you don’t quite have it internalized. Though it does make you look a bit hypocritical should you happen to fail to live up to it. So I wouldn’t normally. But,” he said, leaning in towards me, “you’ve shown an interest, so this is the kind of thing you get to see.”

He actually blushed a little, a bit of pink around the ears. “I’m sad to say I’m not particularly romantic, I’m afraid.”

I grabbed a piece of faving from his plate, tapped his nose with it, then took a bite. “Don’t worry. Neither am I.”

“But yeah,” he went on. “We don’t have absolute power over anything in this world. And because our power is not absolute, there will be times things outside our power happen. And of course they’ll be things we wouldn’t have wanted to happen, if we had the power to stop them. But it’s a rejection of reality to expect things to always go the way we want—the correct thing to do is be ready for when our control fails.”

“So when you lose a memento of your sister…”

“Then I launch into monologues, thank you.” The waiter had appeared again with Blake’s order, which the menu had defined as wheaten moon-cakes, flaky after the Viennese fashion, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, biscuits of any sort.

I just ordered a drink to start with and the waiter left us alone again.

Blake pulled down my menu to look me in the eyes. “Nothing,” he said, “including whether your boyfriend’s Deep American roots show from time to time. You can sit there and look ashamed, or you can remember you don’t have absolute power over me, so anything I do is not yours to be ashamed of.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” he said, “because you don’t think you’re in the wrong yet. But don’t worry about it. I don’t have power over you either, of course.”

“Ah well,” he said, “Gives me some time to dry off. Have I ever shown you my sister’s music?”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah, she’s beautiful, her name’s Island.” He reached in his pockets. “I have a clip of her singing, one moment…” He pulled out a phone, which was kind of damp-looking, but he still managed to get it turned on.

The hologram he pulled up was indeed of a beautiful red kangaroo, dressed in gray and black and white, standing in front of a microphone. A few puffs of smoke came up around her as she began to sing:

“When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound;
when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
shook all the guilty world around—”

The smoke was joined by a spurt of blue sparks, and the phone went dead.

Blake shut his eyes.

“That was amazing,” said a human at a table next to us. “I didn’t catch it in time, though—who is she? I’d love to download her.”

Blake didn’t answer. He picked up the phone and gave it a couple of smacks. It didn’t respond.

“L & L?” I said. “That’s awesome.” The Live and Local movement avoided globalization and the Net, creating their own microcultures instead. “She must be really close with you, to have let you make a recording.”

I took a taxi to Rico’s where I figured Blake’d already be waiting for me. But when I gave my name to the maître d’—Green, reservations for two—I found he’d been held up as well; he came to my table about five minutes after I sat down, and he was soaked even wetter than I had been.

He didn’t apologize. “Quite a day out, isn’t it?” he said, and grinned.

Blake is one of those people who tend to look a little different every time you see them. Today, I was sure he was quite a bit fatter than the last time I saw him… but he wore it well, so I wasn’t going to complain.

He sat down across from me, picking up a menu. “So, did you order yet?”

“Nah,” I said, “I just got here. Missed my bus, had to call a taxi.”

“I missed the bus, too. I think they’re running ahead of schedule today. But I figured I’d walk, since it’s only a couple of blocks.”

Things were not turning my way, though, as I got ready. I’d lost a button on my favorite shirt; I cut my fingers trimming my facial fur, and when I went down to the bus stop in the rain—did I mention it was raining, too?—when I got to the bus stop, I saw my bus had already left.